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Birds and Nature, Vol. X, No 2, September 1901

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<h2 id="c11">THE HUMMINGBIRDS. Maxime miranda in minimus!</h2> <div class="verse"> Minutest of the feathered kind, Possessing every charm combined, Nature, in forming thee, designed That thou shouldst be, A proof within how little space She can comprise such perfect grace, Rendering the lovely, fairy race Beauty’s epitome. —Charlotte Smith. </div> The discovery of <div class="verse"> “The rare little bird of the bower, Bird of the musical wing,” </div> being coincident with that of the New World, the ancients were denied the exhilarating shock of delight that has been vouchsafed to their descendants when that <div class="verse"> “——Quick feathered spangled shot, Rapid as thought from spot to spot, Showing the fairy humming-bird,” </div> and their writings lack the glamour of his “glossy, varying dyes;” for, according to Lesson, the first mention which is made of hummingbirds in the narratives of adventurers who proceeded to America, not with the design of studying its natural productions, but for the discovery of gold, dates from 1558. Of the name hummingbird or hum-bird, Professor Newton says its earliest use, as yet discovered, is said to be by Thomas Morton in The New England Canaan, printed in 1632, while in 1646 Sir Thomas Browne wrote: “So have all Ages conceaved, and most are still ready to sweare, the Wren is the least of Birds, yet the discoveries of America, and even of our own Plantations, shewed us one farre lesse, that is the Hum-bird, not much exceeding a Beetle.” Mr. Ridgway cites the case of Mr. Benjamin Buttivant, writing from Boston in 1697, who told of a hum-bird that he fed with honey, that was “A Prospect to many Comers.” “The earliest notice of the common Ruby-throat that I have been able to find,” Mr. Ridgway continues, “is an extract from a letter written from Boston in New England, October 26, 1670, by John Winthrop, Esq., governor of Connecticut, to Francis Willoughby, Esq., and published in the philosophical Transactions.” This letter reads as follows: “I send you withal, a little Box, with a Curiosity in it, which perhaps will be counted a trifle, yet ’tis rarely to be met with, even here. It is the curiously contrived nest of the Humming-Bird, so called from the humming noise it maketh as it flies. ’Tis an exceeding little Bird, and only seen in Summer, and mostly in gardens, flying from flower, sucking Honey out of the flowers as the Bee doth; as it flieth not lighting on the flower, but hovering over it, sucking with its long Bill a sweet substance. There are in the same Nest two of that Bird’s eggs. Whether they used to have more at once I know not. I never saw but one of these Nests before, and that was sent over formerly with some other Rarities, but the vessel miscarrying, you received them not.” Of the long bill with which it sucketh the sweet substance, the tongue is the essential feature, so far as sustenance is concerned; consisting of a long double cylinder, “like a double-barreled gun,” Goodrich thought—a most convenient instrument for imbibing nectar—flattened and sometimes barbed at the end, for the capture of the minute insects that constitute the less æsthetic portion of their nutriment—for it has been many times demonstrated that, airy and fairy as they 67 are (the size of the stomach not exceeding the globe of the eye, and scarcely a sixth part as large as the heart, which, in turn, is remarkably large, nearly the size of the cranium), they cannot live by ambrosia alone, nor yet by love, but must vary both with an occasional relish of aphides and infinitesimal spiders. Of “that Bird’s two eggs,” Mr. Chapman says: “As far as known, all hummingbirds lay two white eggs—frail, pearly ellipses—that after ten days’ incubation develop into a tangle of dark limbs and bodies, which no one could think of calling birds, much less winged gems.” It has been a matter of doubt to many whether hummingbirds ever rested at all or spent their lives in the air exclusively, but Mr. Gould states authoritatively: “Although many short intermissions of rest are taken during the day, the bird may be said to live in the air—an element in which it performs every kind of evolution with the utmost ease, frequently rising perpendicularly, flying backwards, pirouetting or dancing off, as it were.” It was the belief of the Duke of Argyle that no bird could fly backward, a theory that he stated with emphasis in his Reign of Law, but it has been proved that he reckoned without “the winglet of the fairy hummingbird,” which seems to be the exception to prove a reigning law of Nature. Montgomery makes of the whole Trochilidæ family this inspired explanation: <div class="verse"> “Art thou a bird, a bee, or butterfly? ‘Each and all three;—a bird A bee collecting sweets from bloom to bloom, A butterfly in brilliancy of plume.’” </div> The blooms from which he collects his sweets are of the tubular flowers almost exclusively, as a mark, possibly, of his appreciation of their invention for him and at his request, as told by Albert Bigelow Paine: <div class="verse"> “The clover, said the humming-bird, Was fashioned for the bee, But ne’er a flower, as I have heard, Was ever made for me. </div> <div class="verse"> A passing zephyr paused, and stirred Some moonlit drops of dew To earth; and for the humming-bird The honeysuckle grew.” </div> Of his manner of hanging before his tubular flowers Goodrich says: “He poises or suspends himself on wing for the space of two or three seconds so steadily that his wings become invisible and you can plainly discern the pupil of his eye, looking round with great quickness and circumspection. The glossy green of his back and the fire of his throat, dazzling in the sun, form altogether a most interesting appearance.” This appearance Alexander Wilson pictures thus: <div class="verse"> “While richest roses though in crimson drest, Spring from the splendors of his gorgeous breast. What heavenly tints in mingling radiance fly! Each rapid movement gives a different dye; Like scales of burnished gold they dazzling show, Now sink to shade, now like a furnace glow!” </div> It is little wonder that Buffon exclaimed, “Nature has loaded it with all the gifts of which she has only given other birds a share!” Yet Mr. Ridgway considers the Count de Buffon’s laudation as excessive because the “absence of melodious voice is, as a rule, a conspicuous deficiency of the tribe”; and in 1693 Mr. Hammersley of Coventry stated, “God, in many of his creatures, is bountiful, but not lavish, for I did observe the hummingbirds for several years, and never heard them sing.” Goldsmith says that all travelers agree that they have a little interrupted chirrup, but Labat asserts that they have a most pleasing melancholly melody in their voices, though small and proportioned to the organs that produce it. It is known that a few of the more robust species of Jamaica and Mexico warble a pigmy melody, and Mr. Gosse says that the Vervain hummingbird of Jamaica is the only one known to him that has a real song, warbling in a very weak but very sweet tone a continuous melody for ten minutes at a time. But the poet Rogers apprehended something more than is perceptible to the scientific consciousness, for he exclaims in The Voyage of Columbus: <div class="verse"> “—There quivering rise Wings that reflect the glow of evening skies! Half bird, half fly, the fairy king of flowers Reigns there, and revels through the fragrant hours; Gem full of life and joy and song divine!” </div> <div class="pagenum" id="Page_68">68</div> Could the compressed, intense, vehement little sprite be expanded to the dimensions of the ordinary folk of air, would the magnified musical and physical representation be as entrancing as are the fleeting glimpses of the fairy and the elusive hints of melody that so nearly escape us now? For this electric spark, like an erratic meteorite of topaz and ruby and gold, <div class="verse"> “As if inlaid With brilliants from the mine, or made Of tearless rainbows, such as span Th’ unclouded skies of Peristan,” </div> hovering between heaven and earth in a mist created by its own prismatic wings, might almost be believed an exemplification of light itself as scientifically defined, “a form of radiant energy,” and it is the nearest approach to a disembodied spirit that lies within the range of mortal vision. So while it is believed that its song is but a feeble twittering, it may yet be as much musician as it is bird, and emit strains of melody too exquisite and finely drawn for human apprehension, and of which the notes that reach us are but the deeper tones of a delicate and etherial ariose. Juliette A. Owen. <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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